A Sword's Scream
by Mause
Summary: Kenpachi is desperate to learn the name of his Zanpakuto, so he enlists the aid of Urahara Kisuke. What could possibly go wrong? Rated T for language.
1. Scream

The ruined tip of Zaraki Kenpachi's zanpakuto pierced the Tenshintai with a dull thunk and stuck. He stared at it wordlessly, noting the lack of thrill he felt. Stabbing lifeless objects was worse than sparring, no fun at all. His hand slowly released the hilt, and the sword bent slightly, wobbling gently in the human-like doll. The tiny bells in his hair rang discordantly as he turned his head towards the geta-wearing shopkeeper.

Urahara looked from the Captain to the lifeless dummy. He couldn't help feeling a bit nervous, Kenpachi seemed like the type to take revenge when sold faulty merchandise, but now he just looked helpless.

"Well," he explained, "I wasn't sure it would work. Since you haven't manifested your zanpakuto, there may not be enough of a connection to pull it through. Your synchronization is abysmal, and let's not even talk about submission. I actually would have been surprised if it worked."

Kenpachi grunted. When people tried explaining things to him it all kind of became a buzz that he ignored, like an annoying insect. All he needed to know was that it hadn't worked, just like all the other things people who were supposed to know about zanpakutos advised. Give it time, they all said. Patience wasn't on his list of redeeming qualities in the best of times, and now Soul Society was in deep shit. The rookie human who had actually beaten him was losing to the new Hollows.

Urahara watched the tall Captain curiously as he stared at the sword for a few more moments, then turned away with a jingle of bells and a swoosh of tattered haori. Did he look sad, for a moment? Of course not, this is Zaraki Kenpachi we're talking about, he chided himself.

An unearthly scream filled the desolate underground cavern.

-

Kenpachi had strode unannounced into the shop, calling loudly for Urahara Kisuke. Ururu and Jinta trailed behind him, too shocked by his spiritual pressure to protest.

"Get out here, Urahara! I know you're here," he demanded. A door slid open in the back, revealing a peeking eye and a striped hat.

"Ohhhhh, Zaraki-taichou! We just got a shipment of soul candy in, you must have heard about it! They just released the new Cherry Cero flavor," Urahara informed him cheerfully.

"What the hell? No," Kenpachi replied irritably. Urahara's face took on a more serious look.

"Then what can I do for you? And suppress your reiatsu please, I think my workers are going to faint."

"Er, sorry," apologized Kenpachi. He tended to lose concentration when he was irritated, and let his control slip. He scratched the back of his head, and seemed at a loss for what to say. "Basically, I want you to bring out my zanpakuto. It won't come out, and Captain Kurotsuchi said he couldn't do anything. Ichigo says he used some gadget of yours to do it faster."

"Oh...?" said Urahara. He tapped the hilt of Benihime thoughtfully. "It might work, at that. You have to pay, you know!"

-

The wail went on and on, its multiple discordant voices clashing in an outraged harmony. Pain, unimaginable pain. Grief. Loss. Rage. It rebounded from the distant walls, and only seemed to grow in intensity. Urahara grimaced, holding the brim of his hat down over his ears. He had heard the cries of hollows, the screams of humans and shinigami, but this was something else. Outraged empathy flowed from Benihime, until he was ready to scream for it to stop.

Kenpachi had turned and was staring motionlessly at his sword. The cry had struck something deep inside him that resonated. What is this pain in my chest, he wondered. It hurts a lot worse than being cut.

Ah...I remember, he began, but an explosion carried away the thought.

The dust had blown past them before he could think about moving. It burnt his throat, but he refused to cough. Urahara had no such compunctions.

A woman stood where before there had only been a vaguely human-shaped mannequin. In her hand was his zanpakuto.

Her skin was a deep, burnt umber, where it wasn't covered in scars. They stood out brightly, most thin, some thick. Some smooth, some rough or jagged. The thought flitted through Kenpachi's mind that she had him beat. Her hair was a dull orangish-red, somewhere between Ichigo and Renji. It was uneven, as it had been cut, ripped, and burnt all over. None of it went past her shoulders. What remained of her clothing was grey, simple but efficient, belted around the waist, sleeveless and going no lower than mid-thigh. The gaping tears in it revealed more scarred flesh.

She breathed heavily, hunched forward with barely contained fury, her hand holding the hilt of his sword until her knuckles turned white.

"Bastard! How dare you?" she demanded. Kenpachi had traded insults with countless foes over the years, but this scorn had a personal quality that made it hard to hear. I know you better anyone, it said, and I still hate you. Before he had begun to think of a reply, she rushed him.

Fast! was all he had time to process, before the familiar pain of a blade entering him reached his brain. Ah, this is better, he thought. I know this pain. Still, being stabbed with his own zanpakuto had a particular tearing feeling. He felt every point on the jagged edge as it tore out his back.

He stared blankly for a moment, then looked downwards, focusing his eyes on the woman who had just impaled him to the hilt on his own sword. His blood slid down the hilt of his sword, soaking her hands. A warm snake trickled treacherously down his muscular back.

She was hunched over the protuding hilt, her forehead barely touching his chest. Her hands still gripped the hilt tightly, as if she would collapse at any moment without the support.

"How could you?" she demanded, though her voice was weak. Tears fell one after another, mingling with the dark expanding puddle of his blood on the dusty ground below. She jerked against him as she sobbed soundlessly, each movement bringing a fresh stab of pain from the steel still embedded in his chest. One long arm came up and fell gently around her shoulders, although he seemed hesitant. Crying women who stabbed you was not something Kenpachi was familiar with. When Yachiru cried he just gave her what she wanted, but he had no idea a sword would want.

"How could you treat me like that? Look at me! I'm broken, and chipped, and worn down. I'm ruined and dull and everyone sees me being broken. Do you know how much it hurt every time you fought with me? Do you know how frustrating it is to scream at someone and be ignored? To watch helplessly as you're treated like a tool? No, not even a tool, people take care of their tools. Treated like junk," she started loudly, and was whispering by the end.

I treated you like my own body, he thought. Why does it matter if you're jagged or pristine looking? Only Yumichika cares about shit like that. You look like a good sword, not some shiny piece of crap that sits in a sheath all day.

"Sorry," was all he could think to say. He patted her back awkwardly. "What's your name?" Urahara winced and covered his face with his hand.

He felt her go tense, then laugh. "Ha. Haha. You're a real fucking piece of work, asshole." she muttered tonelessly. She twisted the sword grimly, which made him stifle a cry as it tore all new wounds. Then she yanked it to the right ruthlessly. The jagged edge ground along his ribs and burst out his side in a fountain of blood. Even Kenpachi couldn't stand when cut nearly in half. He fell ponderously, like a giant tree. First he fell to his knees, then dropped face forward into his own blood with a wet thump.

She stared down at him with an unreadable look on her face, then slammed the zanpakuto down into the ground, a few millimeters from his face, and was gone in a swirl of wind and sand.

"My my, she's much touchier than you, Benihime," said Urahara as he stared at the unconscious Captain. Wait, how am I going to get him up the giant ladder?


	2. Sharpen

Kenpachi awoke to the familiar throbbing of a fresh wound. His mind quickly went through the familiar checklist. Where are the wounds? How deep are they? How much blood will I lose? How long until I can fight again? None of the answers were very reassuring.

He sat up, suppressing the twinge, okay, throb, okay, avalanche of pain that accompanied the movement. His sword was lying next to him on the tatami. Otherwise, the room was empty.

_Fucker._

His eyes roamed the room until they came to rest on his sword. He grunted.

"Okay, I deserve that, but at least say it to my face, sword," he said, determining to call it that until it told him its name.

He blinked, and the woman who had stabbed him, then nearly cut him in half was sitting in the corner, knees pulled up to her chest and her chin resting on them. The position, combined with the torn outfit, was more than a little revealing.

"Cover up or something," he muttered, doing what he guessed was the polite thing and looking away.

_I'm just a sword. You don't even keep me in a sheath._

"Tch. Have it your way," he grumbled. One hand reached up to finger the fresh stitches. They were essentially tiny bandaids, with each side anchored into his skin instead of being sewn all the way through. At least Urahara had done a decent job patching him up.

As he thought that, the geta-wearing shopkeeper peered in, having heard Zaraki speaking to himself for a while now.

"Oh? Have you manifested your zanpakuto again?" Urahara asked curiously.

"It's right there," Kenpachi said, pointing to the corner. Urahara stared blankly at the empty space.

"You don't see it?" asked the black haired captain.

"No, you see, it was done without the aid of the Tenshintai, so your zanpakuto's spirit has no physical manifestation for other people. Technically, it's not even spiritual, it's purely a link created in your brain as a way to explain the information it's recieving through your connection to the sword," Urahara explained quickly.

Kenpachi's eyes had glazed over during the beginning of the explanation. He came back to reality after Urahara shut up.

"So basically only I can see it, right?" Kenpachi summarized.

_I belong to an idiot._

"She seems pissed," Kenpachi stated.

Urahara looked thoughtful for a minute. "Well, she's a girl right? Why don't you do something nice for her?"

Kenpachi stared at him blankly. Something nice and girl percolated in his brain for a while, then it offered an explanation. "You mean buy her candy?"

"Err, not exactly...Swords don't eat candy. Try to think about what a sword would like," Urahara advised.

Kenpachi's eyebrows knitted in a blatant 'thinking' pose. Several painful minutes passed as Urahara and the nameless woman looked on in disbelief.

_Sharpening._

"Err...sharpening?" Kenpachi offered hesitantly. He wasn't quite sure if he had thought it or heard it.

"Ohhh, good idea!" cheered Urahara enthusiastically. His gaze traveled to the jagged edge of the zanpakuto. "I don't think you can restore the edge, though. There's not really enough sword left to work with, and judging by your zanpakuto's manifestation the change has been there long enough for it to be permanent."

Kenpachi shrugged. Smooth fancy edges pissed him off anyway. "I guess I can sharpen the edge and oil it," he compromised.

"Right! And just for my favorite customer, I'll give you a discount on the oil and free use of a sharpening stone!" he offered cheerfully.

Kenpachi sighed. "Just get me the cheapest stuff."

_Hmph._

"I mean, do you have anything special?"

-

Urahara returned with a bottle of sword oil in fancy packaging, and the basic stones for sharpening.

Kenpachi picked up the bottle and read aloud. "Urahara Custom Sword Oil, leaves your sword shiny and radiant in just one use or your money back. Our patented formula exfoliates dead spirit particles, revealing a smooth glossy shine," he read skeptically.

_Ah!_

He glanced at his zanpakuto, staring skeptically at the source of the excited exclamation. She was staring ahead morosely, trying to act like she hadn't made any noise.

Urahara was staring in surprise, figuring Kenpachi couldn't read at all, much less big words like exfoliate. When he had entered the Gotei 13, he quickly found out as a Captain he would need to know how to read to do his duties. He struggled at first, finding it impossible to motivate himself despite the constant nagging he recieved from Yamamoto. When Yachiru started learning faster than him and trying to help him with words, he got pissed off, and learned kanji within a month.

Kenpachi was staring at the stones in front of him, his gaze occasionally shifting to the sword lying near him and the bottle of oil. Eventually he glanced up hopefully at Urahara.

"What do I do now?"

Urahara stared dumbstruck. "You mean...you've never sharpened your sword, ever?"

"Not exactly sharpened," Kenpachi said. "I mean, sliding along another sword is kind of like what chefs do, right? I always figured that was good enough."

Urahara covered his face with his palm. No wonder his sword didn't want to materialize.

"Actually, you should sharpen it regularly."

Kenpachi stared at the stone for a while again. "We'll I've seen Ikkaku do this, but I don't remember. He mostly just sat looking bald and serious."

"You put the oil on the stone and then rub your sword on it," said Urahara, pantomiming the motion with his hands.

The first attempt didn't go very well. The room was filled with a terrifying metallic screeching, like the grown up version of nails on a chalkboard.

_Owww._

"Whoa whoa whoa, do it gently!" Urahara exclaimed quickly.

"...Gently," said Kenpachi cluelessly. His brain went way, way to the back of the library, on the dustiest old shelf, dug through several books about chopping, and finally found one that contained the word gently.

"You mean like washing Yachiru's hair?" Kenpachi offered hopefully.

"Uhh, yeah, sure. Just do it gently."

Gently was difficult for Kenpachi, but you can't say he didn't try. About halfway through he started to feel like he was getting it right. She made disapproving noises when he did something wrong, and tiny quiet noises that he thought meant he was doing it right. Through process of elimination he had her emitting only the approving noises, and blushing when his hand brushed the bronze guard. It was all kind of confusing, but he started to get into it, since it was the first positive reinforcement he had ever gotten from his zanpakuto.

Then he decided he would unwrap the dirty white cloth on the hilt, just to go the extra mile. She screamed, yanked her shirt closed, and aimed a swift kick at his fresh wound all at the same time.

_Not in front of him, idiot! _was all he heard before the pain of his stitches breaking open again made a roaring in his ears, like rushing water. When his brain was processing external stimuli again, he was flat on his back, his view of the ceiling blocked by a scarred face, staring down at him with badly-concealed concern.

_Sorry._


End file.
